How AFL rule change jump-started ruckman Oscar Steene’s career at Collingwood
Oscar Steene was in his hometown of Adelaide when he heard the AFL was changing the rules.
He made strong progress in 2025, his third season with the Magpies; He has played 18 VFL matches in 2023 after being limited to just one VFL match the previous year following a dislocated toe.
Mason Cox’s omission from the list featured Steene as a reserve ruckman to the Magpies’ best and fairest winner Darcy Cameron.
The dream of playing AFL, which was slowly approaching reality for Steene, was suddenly accelerated when the AFL abolished the center bounce and introduced a line on center tackles; Changes favoring backpacks with spring heels.
“I absolutely loved it [new rules]. I think jumping is a strong suit for me and I could see the rules trying to bring jumping back onto the track,” said Steene.
As Steene says, it’s not just the rules that are bogging down the jump again.
Players like Steene and Hawthorn’s Ned Reeves, who he will face on Thursday night, have managed to thrill the crowd with high leaping strikes on midfielders. The duo top the table in terms of winning percentage on bounces from center in 2026.
Steene’s first-time strike against Nick Daicos in the opening quarter of the third-round game against GWS, Reeves’ right-handed palm-off and Jai Newcombe’s late game against Geelong on Easter Monday, sit alongside two early-season highlights.
While Steene, a West Adelaide product who attended Adelaide High School as part of its cricket programme, recorded a running vertical leap of 83cm at the 2022 state combine (West Coast great Nic Naitanui measured 102cm in the same test in 2008), he doesn’t know what put springs in his heels.
He knows his older sister, Charlotte, was trying to dunk on their backyard netball court, but has no explanation beyond that. Steene did not play basketball. Nor was he seriously involved in high jumping or athletics. His preferred sports were football and cricket; Here he played as a bowler and described his pace as medium rather than fast.
“I’ve been playing field my whole life, I’ve always been half-big,” he said.
And this year, he was able to capitalize on his younger days when umpires routinely tossed the ball into the air on strikeouts.
“It was done that way throughout my youth. The referee would throw the ball into the middle and it was always at a consistent height,” Steene said. “And then when I started playing senior football, that’s when they started jumping [the ball]. [new] “The rules are similar to the rules when I played in the juniors, which helps a little bit.”
His potential partnership with Nick Daicos, who is just eight months older than Steene, has Magpie fans salivating. On Anzac Day the Daicos were running around the center circle, feasting on Steene’s cocks like a hen collecting sunflower seeds.
While Thursday night was their fifth game together, this is their fourth season practicing together on the roster. Daicos came close to winning three Brownlow Medals while Steene served an apprenticeship in the VFL.
Although he’s not shy about contributing ideas when his team-mates put their heads together before firing the ball in the centre, Steene is smart enough to listen to what Daicos, Scott Pendlebury, Jordan De Goey and their friends have to say. they have to offer as they apply their football brains to the science of decentralization.
“It’s a pretty balanced discussion. They’ll ask me where the easiest spot is for me to hit and then they’ll try to do something to get there. If we’re on top and want to keep the momentum going, we might try to take a forward shot,” Steene said. “They know what they’re talking about and they’ll say, ‘No, we should try this shot or that shot.’ It’s a real privilege to play with them; it’s pretty cool.”
Although he has risen from obscurity to Magpies fans’ favourite, Steene is under no illusions.
The mentorship, advice and competition Darcy Cameron offered him from the moment they became training partners in the summer of 2022 have been pivotal in his development.
“All backs have a competitive advantage, especially in the middle jump, because you have to be pretty aggressive. It’s pretty scary to do that when you’re facing another person,” Steene said.
Minimizing the impact of the Hawks’ backpack duo is Reeves and Lloyd Meek’s next task. “They are obviously two elite players, so it will be a great experience to play against them,” Steene said.
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